Non‐conventional starch nanoparticles for drug delivery applications

Abstract

Starch is one of the most abundant biopolymers on earth, next to cellulose and chitin (Tharanathan, 2005). It is one of the most important sources of food for humans, and, at the same time, it is also a renewable resource that could potentially be used in many industrial applications. It is found in plant roots, tubers, stalks and seeds, and is produced by staple crops such as corn, wheat and potato (Buléon, Colonna, Planchot, & Ball, 1998). Most of the starch produced worldwide is derived from corn. Other types of starch such as cassava, potato and wheat starch are also produced in large amounts. Only the starches extracted from these crops are commercially important (Zhu, 2020) and have applications in different areas, such as the food, textile and paper industries (BeMiller & Whistler, 2009; Sjöö & Nilsson, 2018). Starch is synthetized in the chloroplast of plant cells as insoluble granules. These granules are formed by two different polymers: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is a linear, or slightly branched, polysaccharide of glucose units joined by α-1-4 glycosidic bonds (Dimantov, Greenberg, Kesselman, & Shimoni, 2004). Amylopectin is a branched biopolymer featuring additional α-1-6 glycosidic bonds. The botanical source determines a variety of starch properties such as chemical composition, the amylose/amylopectin relation, molecular weight, molecular structure, the length of the α-glucan chains, the branching degree of amylopectin and the amount of non-carbohydrate impurities, as well as other thermal and rheological properties (Nwokocha, Aviara, Senan, & Williams, 2009). Starch is a cheap and versatile biopolymer that has been used for many biomedical applications, including tissue engineering scaffolds, bone cements, drug delivery systems and stent (Beilvert

Poly ɛ-caprolactone/nanostarch composite nanofibrous wound dressing with antibacterial property and pH stimulus drug release

“…The residual gentamicin percent in drug loaded membrane till the 24th hour was sufficient enough to exhibit bacterial inhibition zones. The 25NS@PCL membrane showed higher antibacterial activity till 12 h. The hydrophilic moieties of NS facilitate the leaching of drug molecules, out from the membrane (Troncoso and Torres 2020). Gentamicin loaded PCL membranes show a delayed release.…”

Immunology of biodegradable nanoparticles: a brief overview on a wide growing field

“…Supported by previous results on starch films [15], we hypothesized that fine polysaccharide changes may induce the recruitment of different PRRs on THP-1 membranes and a different cytokine response. Starch-NPs' properties depend on the botanical source of the polymer and drive NP-employment in nano-formulations aimed at stimulation (e.g., adjuvants) or avoidance of inflammatory reactions (e.g., drug delivery) [16]. In the first case, it would be always important to understand the extent of the inflammatory response with in vivo studies.…”

Microparticles and Nanoparticles from Plants—The Benefits of Bioencapsulation

“…Starch grains store high-energy carbohydrate resources in plants, and both the organelles and the starch polymers they contain have been developed as DDVs [ 31 , 32 ]. Starch polymers offer good biocompatibility and are therefore used in many different biomedical and pharmacological applications [ 33 ].…”